The motion picture industry was born when static pictures were flashed on a screen fast enough that people perceived the image to be moving. The pictures were eventually “taped” together by imprinting the static pictures on a roll of translucent film. This allowed a projector to shine light through each picture and project the image to a screen. By moving the film in front of the projector, each picture was flashed on the screen in sequence, giving the illusion of motion to the audience. Because each of the pictures is “flashed” momentarily, the speed of the flashing is important to reduce flicker. Human vision has a phenomenon known as ‘persistence of vision’—that is, the eye retains what it sees even after the picture is removed from sight. The phenomenon is momentary, and, if a motion picture projector is fast enough, the motion appears in focus and does not flicker. It has become a standard in the film industry to use a frame rate (flashes of pictures) of 24 frames (or pictures) per second. This rate works well in lighting controlled environments (persistence of vision is influenced by the amount of ambient lighting).
Modern progressive video does not have a time lag between “flashes” of pictures. The pictures (or images) are continuously shown. This does not allow the human eye to focus on the picture long enough to denote details of the picture before it changes. Essentially, the persistence of vision attempts to retain a previous picture while a new picture is being shown, causing a blurring effect. Thus, progressive video does not appear to have the same quality as when the same video is shown in a motion picture setting. Progressive video effectively reduces the quality and viewing experience of film-based motion pictures (or videos).